Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood

Wherewith the friends fell into conversation more immediately interesting to themselves, while at the other end of the court, sheltered by a great orange-tree, a committee of the “Traveller’s Joy” was held.

For that serial still survived, though it could never be called a periodical, since it was an intermittent, and sometimes came out very rapidly, sometimes with intervals of many months; but it was always sent to, and greatly relished by, the absent members of the original party, at first at Eton, and later, two in their barracks, and one at his college at Oxford, whither, to his great satisfaction, he had gone by means of a well-won scholarship, not at his aunt’s expense.

Jotapata’s lengthy romance had died a natural death in the winter that had been spent between Egypt and Palestine. So far from picking up ideas from it there, Babie, in the actual sight of Mount Hermon’s white crown, had begged not to be put in mind of such nonsense, and had never recurred to it; but the wells of fancy had never been dried, and the young people were happily putting together their bits of journal, their bits of history, the description of the great amphitheatre, a poem of Babie’s on St. Louis’s death, a spirited translation in Scott-like metre of Armine’s of the opening of the AEneid, also one from the French, by Sydney, on Arab customs, and all Lord Fordham had been able to collect about Hippo, also “The Single Eye,” by Allen, and “Marco’s Felucca,” by Armine and Babie in partnership, and a fair proportion of drollery.

“There was a space left for the wedding, the greatest event the ‘Traveller’s Joy’ had ever had on record,” said Sydney, as she touched up the etching at the top of her paper, sitting on a low stool by a low mother-of-pearl inlaid Eastern table.

“The greatest and the last,” chimed in Babie, as she worked away at the lace she was finishing for the bride.

“I don’t see why it should be the last of the poor old ‘Joy,’” said Lord Fordham, sorting the MSS. which were scattered round him on the ground.

“Well, somehow I feel as if we had come to the end of a division of our lives,” returned Babie.

“Having done with swaddling bands, eh, Infanta?” said Lord Fordham, while Armine hastily sketched in pen and ink, Babie, with her hair flying and swaddling bands off, executing a war-dance. She did not like it.

“For shame, Armine! Don’t you know how dreadful it is to lose dear Miss Ogilvie?”

“Of course, Babie,” said her brother, “I didn’t think you were such a Babie as not to know that things go by contraries.”

“It is too tender a spot for irony, Armie,” said Lord Fordham.

“Well,” said Armine, “I shall be obliged to do something outrageous presently, so look out!”

“Not really!” said Sydney.

“Yes, really,” said Babie, recovering; “I see what he means. He would like to do anything rather than sit and think that this is the last time we shall all be together again in this way.”

“I’m sure I don’t see why we should not,” said Sydney. “To say nothing of meetings in England; Duke and Armine have only to cough three times in October, and we should all go off together again, and be as jolly as ever.”

“I don’t mean to cough,” said Armine, gravely, “I’ve wasted enough of my life already.”

“In our company, eh?” said Sydney, “or are you to be taken by contraries?”

“No,” said Armine. “One has duties, and lotus-eating is uncommonly nice, but it won’t do to go on for ever. I wouldn’t have given in to it this winter if Allen hadn’t floored us.”

“And then when you thought I had got a tutor, and should do some good with him,” chimed in Babie, “he must needs go and fall in love and spoil our Miss Ogilvie.”

The disgust with which she uttered the words was so comic, that all the others burst out laughing.

And Fordham said—

“The Land of Afternoon was too strong for him. Shall you really pine much for Miss Ogilvie, Infanta?”

“I shall miss her dreadfully,” said Babie, “and I think it is very stupid of her to leave mother, whom she has known all her life, and all of us, for a strange man she never saw till four months ago.”

“Oh, Babie, you to be the author of a chivalrous romance!” said Fordham.

“I was young and silly then,” said the young lady, who was within a month of sixteen.

“And all your romances are to be henceforth without love,” said Armine.

“I think they would be much more sensible,” said Babie. “Why do you all laugh so? Don’t you see how stupid poor Allen always is? And it can even spoil Miss Ogilvie, and make her inattentive.”

“Poor Allen,” echoed one or two voices, in the same low tone, for as they peeped out beyond the orange-tree, Allen might be seen, extended on a many-coloured rug, in an exceedingly deplorable attitude.

“O yes,” said Sydney; “but if one has such a—such a—such an object as that, one must expect to be stupid and miserable sometimes!”

“She must have been worrying him again,” said Babie.

“O yes, didn’t you see?” said Armine. “No, I remember you didn’t go out riding early to-day.”

“No, I was finishing Miss Ogilvie’s wedding lace.”

“Well, that French captain, that Elfie went on with at the commandant’s ball, came riding up in full splendour, and trotted alongside of her, chattering away, she bowing and smiling, and playing off all her airs, and at last letting him give her a great white flower. Didn’t you see it in her breast at breakfast? Poor Allen was looking as if he had eaten wormwood all the time when he was forced to fall back upon me, and I suppose he has been having it out with her and has got the worst of it.”

“O, it is that, is it?” said Lord Fordham; “I thought she wanted to pique Allen, she was so empressee with me.”

“If people will be so foolish as to care for a pretty face,” sagely said Sydney.

“You know it is not only that,” said Babie; “Allen is bound in honour to marry Elvira, to repair the great injustice. It is a great pity she will not marry him now at once, but I think she is afraid, because then, you know, she would get to have a soul, like Undine, and she doesn’t want one yet.”

“That’s a new view of the case,” said Lord Fordham in his peculiar lazy manner, “and taken allegorically it may be the true one.”

“But one would like to have a soul,” said Sydney.

“I’m not sure,” said Babie, with a great look of awe. “One would know it was best, but it would be very tremendous to feel all sorts of thoughts and perceptions swelling up in one.”

“If that is the soul,” said Armine.

“Which is the soul?” said Babie, “our understanding, or our feelings, or both?”

“Both,” said Sydney, undoubtingly.

“I don’t know,” said Babie. “Poor little Chico has double the heart of his mistress.”

“It is quite true,” said Fordham. “We may share intellect with demons, but we do share what is called heart with animals.”

“I think good animals have a sort of soul,” observed Armine.

“And of course, Elvira has a soul,” said Sydney, who was getting bewildered.

“Theologically speaking—yes,” said Armine, making them all laugh, “and I suppose Undine hadn’t. But it was sense and heart that was wanting.”

“The heart would bring the sense,” said Lord Fordham, “and so we have come round to the Infanta’s first assertion that the young lady shrinks from the awakening.”

“I’ll tell you what she really does care for,” said Babie, “and what I believe would waken up her soul much better than marrying poor Allen.”

The announcement was so extraordinary that they all turned their heads to listen.

“Her old black nurse at San Ildefonso,” said Babie. “I believe going back there would do her all the good in the world.”

“There’s something in that notion,” said Armine. “She is always better-tempered in a hot country.”

“Yes,” added Babie, “and you didn’t see her when somebody advised our trying the West Indies for the winter. Her eyes gleamed, and she panted, and I didn’t know what she was going to do. I told mother at night, but she said she was afraid of going there, because of the yellow fever, and that San Ildefonso had been made a coaling-station by the Americans, so it would only disappoint her. But Elfie looked—I never saw any one look as she did—fit to kill some one when she found it was given up, and she did not get over it for ever so long.”

“Take care; here’s an apparition,” said Armine, as a brilliant figure darted out in a Moorish dress, rich jacket, short full white tunic, full trousers tied at the ankles, coins pendulous on the brow, bracelets, anklets, and rows of pearls. It was a dress on which Elvira had set her heart in readiness for fancy balls; it had been procured with great difficulty and expense, and had just come home from the French modiste who had adapted it to European wear.

Allen started up in admiration and delight. Even Mr. Morgan was roused to make an admiring inspection of the curious ornaments and devices; and Elvira, with her perfect features, rich complexion, dark blue eyes, Titian coloured hair, fine figure, and Oriental air, formed a splendid study.

Lord Fordham begged her to stand while he sketched her; and Babie, with Sydney, was summoned to try on the bridesmaids’ apparel.

The three girls, Elvira, Sydney, and Barbara acted as bridesmaids the next day, when, in the English chapel, Mr. Ogilvie gave his sister to his old friend, to begin her new life as a clergyman’s wife.

What could be called Elvira de Menella’s character? Those who knew her best, such as Barbara Brownlow, would almost have soon have thought of ascribing a personal character to a cloud as to her. She smiled into glorious loveliness when the sun shone; she was gloomy and thunderous when displeased, and though she had a passionate temper, and could be violent, she had no fixed purpose, but drifted with the external impulse of the moment. She had not much mind or power of learning, and was entirely inattentive to anything intellectual, so that education had not been able at the utmost to do more than fit her to pass in the crowd, and could get no deeper; and what principles she had it was not easy to tell. Not that she did or said objectionable things, since she had outgrown her childish outbreaks; but she seemed to have no substance, and to be kept right by force of circumstances. She had the selfishness of any little child, and though she had never been known to be untruthful, this might be because there was not the slightest temptation to deceive. She was just as much the spoilt child, to all intents and purposes, as if she had been the heiress; perhaps more so, for Mrs. Brownlow had always been so remorseful for the usurpation as to be extra indulgent—lenient to her foibles, and lavish in gifts and pleasures, even inconveniencing herself for her fancies; whilst Allen had, from the first, treated her with the devotion of a lover. No stranger had ever supposed that she was not the equal in all respects of the rest of the family, nor had she realised it herself.

CHAPTER XXVI. MOONSHINE

     But still the lady shook her head,       And swore by yea and nay     My whole was all that he had said,       And all that he could say.                             W. M. Praed.

Mrs. Brownlow had intended to go at once to London on her return to England, but the joint entreaties of Armine and Barbara prevailed on her to give them one week at Belforest, now in that early spring beauty in which they had first seen it.

How delightful the arrival was! Easter had been very late, so it was the last week of the vacation, and dear old Friar John’s handsome face was the first thing they saw at the station, and then his father’s portly form, with a tall pretty creature on each side of him, causing Babie to fall back with a cry of glad amazement, “Oh! Essie and Ellie! Such women!”

Then the train stopped, and there was a tumult of embracings and welcomes, in the midst of which Jock appeared, having just come by the down train.

“You’ll all come to dinner this evening?” entreated Caroline. “My love to Ellen. Tell her you must all of you come.”

It was a most delightsome barouche full that drove from the station. Jock took the reins, and turned over coachman and footman to the break, and in defiance of dignity, his mother herself sprang up beside him. The sky was blue, the hedges were budding with pure light-green above, and resplendent with rosy campion and white spangles of stitchwort below. Stars of anemone, smiling bunches of primrose, and azure clouds of bluebell made the young hearts leap as at that first memorable sight. Armine said he was ready to hurrah and throw up his hat, and though Elvira declared that she saw nothing to be so delighted about, they only laughed at her.

Gorgeous rhododendrons and gay azaleas rose in brilliant masses nearer the house, beds of hyacinths and jonquils perfumed the air, judiciously arranged parterres of gay little Van Thol tulips and white daisies flashed on the eyes of the arriving party, while the exquisite fresh green provoked comparisons with parched Africa.

Bobus was standing on the steps to receive them, and when they had crossed the hall, with due respect to its Roman mosaic pavement, they found the Popinjay bowing, dancing, and chattering for joy, and tea and coffee for parched throats in the favourite Dresden set in the morning room, the prettiest and cosiest in the house.

“How nice it is! We are all together except Janet,’ exclaimed Babie.

“And Janet is coming to us in London,” said her mother. “Did you see her on her way to Edinburgh boys?”

“No,” said Jock. “She never let us know she was there.”

“But I’ll tell you an odd thing I have just found out,” said Bobus. “It seems she came down here on her way, unknown to anyone, got out at the Woodside station, and walked across here. She told Brock that she wanted something out of the drawers of her library-table, of which the key had been lost, and desired him to send for Higg to break it open; but Brock wouldn’t hear of it. He said his Missus had left him in charge, and he could not be answerable to her for having locks picked without her authority—or leastways the Colonel’s. He said Miss Brownlow was in a way about it, and said as how it was her own private drawer that no one had a right to keep her out of, but he stood to his colours; he said the house was Mrs. Brownlow’s, and under his care, and he would have no tampering with locks, except by her authority or the Colonel’s. He even offered to send to Kenminster if she would write a note to my uncle, but she said she had not time, and walked off again, forbidding him to mention that she had been here.”

“Janet always was a queer fish!” said Jock.

“Poor Janet, I suppose she wanted some of her notes of lectures,” said her mother. “Brock’s sound old house-dog instinct must have been very inconvenient to her. I must write and ask what she wanted.”

“But she forbade him to mention it,” said Bobus.

“Of course that was only to avoid the fuss there would have been if it had been known that she had been here without coming to Kencroft. By the bye, I didn’t tell Brock those good people were coming to dinner. How well the dear old Monk looks, and how charming Essie and Ellie! But I shall never know them apart, now they are both the same size.”

“You won’t feel that difficulty long,” said Bobus. “There really is no comparison between them.”

“Just the insipid English Mees,” said Elvira. “You should hear what the French think of the ordinary English girl!”

“So much the better,” said Bobus. “No respectable English girl would wish for a foreigner’s insulting admiration.”

“Well done, Bobus! I never heard such an old-fashioned insular sentiment from you. One would think it was your namesake. By the bye, where is the great Rob?”

“At Aldershot,” said Jock. “I assure you he improves as he grows older. I had him to dine the other day at our mess, and he cut a capital figure by judiciously holding his tongue and looking such a fine fellow, that people were struck with him.”

“There,” said Armine, slyly, “he has the seal of the Guards’ approval.”

Jock could afford to laugh at himself, for he was entirely devoid of conceit, but he added, good humouredly—

“Well, youngster, I can tell you it goes for something. I wasn’t at all sure whether the ass mightn’t get his head out of the lion-skin.”

“Oh, yes! they are all lions and no asses in the Guards,” said Babie; whereupon Jock fell on her, and they had a playful skirmish.

Nobody came to dinner but John and his two sisters. It had turned out that the horse had been too much worked to be used again, and there was a fine moon, so that the three had walked over together. Esther and Eleanor Brownlow had always been like twins, and were more than ever so now, when both were at the same height of five feet eight, both had the same thick glossy dark-brown hair, done in the very same rich coils, the same clearly-cut regular profiles, oval faces, and soft carnation cheeks, with liquid brown eyes, under pencilled arches. Caroline was in confusion how to distinguish them, and trusted at first solely to the little coral charms which formed Esther’s ear-rings, but gradually she perceived that Esther was less plump and more mobile than her sister—her colour was more variable, and she seemed as timid as ever, while Eleanor was developing the sturdy Friar texture. Their aunt had been the means of sending them to a good school, and they had a much more trained and less homely appearance than Jessie at the same age, and seemed able to take their part in conversation with their cousins, though Essie was manifestly afraid of her aunt. They had always been fond of Barbara, and took eager possession of her, while John’s Oxford talk was welcome to all,—and it was a joyous evening of interchange of travellers’ anecdotes and local and family news, but without any remarkable feature till the time came for the cousins to return. They had absolutely implored not to be sent home in the carriage, but to walk across the park in the moonlight; and it was such a lovely night that when Bobus and Jock took up their hats to come with them, Babie begged to go too, and the same desire strongly possessed her mother, above all when John said, “Do come, Mother Carey;” and “rowed her in a plaidie.”

That youthful inclination to frolic had come on her, and she only waited to assure herself that Armine did not partake of her madness, but was wisely going to bed. Allen was holding out a scarf to Elvira, but she protested that she hated moonlight, and that it was a sharp frost, and she went back to the fire.

As they went down the steps in the dark shadow of the house, John gave his aunt his arm, and she felt that he liked to have her leaning on him, as they walked in the strong contrasts of white light and dark shade in the moonshine, and pausing to look at the wonderful snowy appearance of the white azaleas, the sparkling of the fountain, and the stars struggling out in the pearly sky; but John soon grew silent, and after they had passed the garden, said—

“Aunt Caroline, if you don’t mind coming on a little way, I want to ask you something.”

The name, Aunt Caroline, alarmed her, but she professed her readiness to hear.

“You have always been so kind to me” (still more alarming, thought she); “indeed,” he added, “I may say I owe everything to you, and I should like to know that you would not object to my making medicine my profession.”

“My dear Johnny!” in an odd, muffled voice.

“Had you rather not?” he began.

“Oh, no! Oh, no, no! It is the very thing. Only when you began I was so afraid you wanted to marry some dreadful person!”

“You needn’t be afraid of that. Ars Medico, will be bride enough for me till I meet another Mother Carey, and that I shan’t do in a hurry.”

“You silly fellow, you aren’t practising the smoothness of tongue of the popular physician.”

“Don’t you think I mean it?” said John, rather hurt.

“My dear boy, you must excuse me. It is not often one gets so many compliments in a breath, besides having one of the first wishes of one’s heart granted.”

“Do you mean that you really wished this?”

“So much that I am saying, ‘Thank God!’ in my heart all the time.”

“Well, my father and mother thought you might be wishing me to be a barrister, or something swell.”

“As if I could—as if I ever could be so glad of anything,” said she with rejoicing that surprised him. “It is the only thing that could make up for none of my own boys taking that line. I can’t tell you now how much depends on it, John, you will know some day. Tell me what put it into your head—”

He told her, as he had told his father nearly four years before, how the dim memory of his uncle had affected him, and how the bent had been decidedly given by his attendance on Jock, and his intercourse with Dr. Medlicott. At Oxford, he had availed himself of all opportunities, and had come out honourably in all examinations, including physical science, and he was now reading for his degree, meaning to go up for honours. His father, finding him steady to his purpose, had consented, and his mother endured, but still hoped his aunt would persuade him out of it. She was so far from any such intention, that a hint of the Magnum Bonum had very nearly been surprised out of her. For the first time since Belforest had come to her, did she feel in the course of carrying out her husband’s injunctions; and she felt strengthened against that attack from Janet to which she looked forward with dread. She talked with John of his plans till they actually reached the lodge gate, and there found Jock, Babie, and Eleanor chattering merrily about fireflies and glowworms a little way behind, and Bobus and Esther paired together much further back. When all had met at the gate and the parting good-nights had been spoken, Bobus became his mother’s companion, and talked all the way home of his great satisfaction at her wandering time being apparently over, of his delight in her coming to settle at home at last, his warm attachment to the place, and his desire to cultivate the neighbouring borough with a view to representing it in Parliament, since Allen seemed to be devoid of ambition, and so much to hate the mud and dust of public life, that he was not likely to plunge into it, unless Elvira should wish for distinction. Then Bobus expatiated on the awkward connection the Goulds would be for Allen, stigmatising the amiable Lisette, who of course by this time had married poor George Gould, as an obnoxious, presuming woman, whom it would be very difficult to keep in her right position. It was not a bad thing that Elvira should have a taste of London society, to make her less likely to fall under her influence.

“That is not a danger I should have apprehended,” said Caroline.

“The woman can fawn, and that is exactly what a haughty being like Elvira likes. She is always pining for a homage she does not get in the family.”

“Except from poor Allen.”

“Except from Allen, but that is a matter of course. He is a slave to be flouted! Did you ever see a greater contrast than that between her and our evening guests?”

“Esther and Eleanor? They have grown up into very sweet-looking girls.”

“Not that there can be any comparison between them. Essie has none of the ponderous Highness in her—only the Serenity.”

“Yes, there is a very pleasant air of innocent candour about their faces—”

“Just what it does a man good to look at. It is like going out into the country on a spring morning. And there is very real beauty too—”

“Yes, Kencroft monopolises all the good looks of the family. What a fine fellow the dear old Friar has grown.”

“If you bring out those two girls this year, you will take the shine out of all the other chaperons!”

“I wonder whether your aunt would like it.”

“She never made any objection to Jessie’s going out with you.”

“No. I should like it very much; I wonder I had not thought of it before, but I had hardly realised that Essie and Ellie were older than Babie, but I remember now, they are eighteen and seventeen.”

“It would be so good for you to have something human and capable of a little consideration to go out with,” added Bobus, “not to be tied to the tail of a will-of-the-wisp like that Elf—I should not like that for you.”

“I am not much afraid,” said Caroline. “You know I don’t stand in such awe of the little donna, and I shall have my Guardsman to take care of me when we are too frivolous for you. But it would be very nice to have those two girls, and make it pleasanter for my Infanta, who will miss Sydney a good deal.”